Nagatsuka Kento from WONK and Taiwanese singer 9m88 “Going abroad with our Asian roots holding tight.”

A brand-new type of experimental soul band in Japan “WONK” has now released a new song “Snowy Road”, working together with a neo-soul/Jazz singer 9m88. The track is highly composed of their warm and sweet voices and gorgeous orchestration sound. Its beautiful lyrics woven in 3 different languages, Japanese, Chinese, and English as a mutual language, make you nostalgic and warm-hearted. There is no doubt that this song is going to be loved as a standard Winter song by everyone. We asked about this first collaboration they’ve longed for, music scenes in Taiwan, and relationships between music and fashion.

9m88’s name came up first.

―We heard that one of 9m88’s favorite artists has been WONK here. Can I ask Mr. Nagatsuka when exactly it was to get to hear the love call?

Nagatsuka:
I think it was around 2018, when I collaborated with KT Chang from Elephant Gym to make “Quilt feat. Kento NAGATSUKA”. Remembering back then, I began to dig deeper into a lot of other Taiwanese musicians and so did I listen to 9m88. I felt the same vibe as mine from her music and felt sympathy toward her sincere attitude to musical creation. A few years ago, we both got in contact and had conversations like “Let’s collaborate together to make a new one”. However, the project could not come true shortly after that. This past memory popped into my mind and sent 9m88 the offer when we WONK decided to make a brand-new album with musicians overseas.

9m88:
I am so honored to hear that from you. Your offer brought me a very happy feeling. Back in 2017, I visited Tower Records and saw a shelf of WONK’s records collection. Then, I bought an album “CASTOR” because as soon as I listened to some of the songs, I realized WONK’s music is composed of my favorite genres. I basically love jazz and hip-hop and so do I think they do as much. I also remember the name WONK had reminded me of a sophisticated jazz pianist Thelonious Monk.

Making of a modern Winter song

―Collaboration song “Snowy Road” seems to be exactly what a Winter song sounds like. How did you get inspiration when it comes to songwriting?

Nagatsuka:
The concept was to write a Winter Song right from the start. A demo which Kan Inoue on bass made, had us have an image of snow falling and after that, the songwriting process went very smoothly.

9m88:
When Nagatsuka had me listen to the demo, I thought it matched the Winter vibe. WONK’s jazzy and pop arrangements impressed me and made me think of it as a new type of modern Winter song.

―Why did you decide to write the lyrics in 3 languages: Japanese, Chinese, and English?

Nagatsuka:
Because I wanted to mix up our own mother languages in one song. There was a bit of struggle when writing the chorus part, like “in which language should it be?”. We finally ended up singing the part in English as a mutual language and writing each part in our own words. I think the process where I proposed a demo lyric and talked it over with 9m88 worked well to deepen the content. It was honestly difficult to write the Winter lyric in summer. But I personally like Winter the best of all seasons and Christmas songs make my heart pop every year. I added such inner feeling and put such pieces into one single easier concept. Sharing my thoughts with 9m88, her lyrics in Chinese were perfectly made.

9m88:
When He handed the lyrics, the image of lovers passing by snowy streets floated up in my mind and thought their love should grow. That was also when I got confident to draw one solid story even using multiple languages. Though it was a bit challenging for me to blend my singing style with Mr. Nagatsuka, I rode it over by trying to sing as softly as I could to fit in the sound which I had not been familiar with.

Nagatsuka:
For me, there didn’t seem to be a challenge. 9m88 pronounces English well and she is much better at it than I am (chuckling).
I basically wanted to see what naturally took place, so I gave her only a few requests about the performance. In fact, her performance went beyond my expectations. There is no doubt that it was meaningful for me to collaborate with her across the boundary.

9m88:
The beautiful song is, I think, both like a Japanese drama soundtrack and slightly like a standard J-pop. This song made me help find new-me. And the making process was very smooth to work through. I am sure this song is highly complete.

One-piece / CFCL

No need to use a typical “American” English

―Mr. Nagatsuka has interactions with Elephant Gym and once appeared on Golden Indie Music Awards／GIMA known to be a “Grammy Award in Taiwan”. What kind of impressions do you have of the music scenes in Taiwan?

Nagatsuka:
I think Taiwanese music is similar to Japanese ones in some aspects, but intrinsic in others, thinking of the hip-hop boom there. Some of the musicians there have been working across the globe from China to Western countries. Based on the fact that Japanese artists YOASOBI and Asian rooted musicians 88rising have gone viral around the world, I think we must be able to do much better in the music business worldwide.

9m88:
I went to a jazz school in NY for 3 years from 2015 to 2018 and then began to like jazz and R&B a lot more. After that time, I got back home in Taiwan with the learning, but not so many people understood me right then. Now, much more people like R&B and stuff, though. From my point of view, more people in Taiwan also like to listen to ballad pops, such as our song.

―I had an impression that the recent release “SENT” contained a pop vibe in itself.

9m88:
That is really what I paid attention to. Though I made the former albums working with those from various countries, “SENT” was rather for listeners in Asian countries by singing in my mother language.

Nagatsuka:
“SENT” is literally a cool album, I think. 9m88’s sweet voice and her sudden soulful voice never get me bored. I love how I can feel your passion from the music.

9m88:
Thank you so much. I am so honored. I love that Mr. Nagatsuka never loses his Japanese roots even when singing in English.

Nagatsuka:
When WONK decided to sing in English lyrics, I wondered if I should learn American or any particular accents from singers there. But now, I don’t care much about my pronunciation because I realized that English artists do have different accents from each other. Commonly, English in British accent fits in Japanese more comfortably than American. And I thought I never had to look alike any of those accents. Recently, I have been only pursuing the way I can perform the best and the way I can tell my message to audiences the most.

Asian culture should be more spotted.

―Will WONK’s next album have more collaboration songs with artists overseas, including “Snowy Road”?

Nagatsuka:
The album is planned to come out like that. It is because we originally began the band thinking of going overseas. We even set the first official website all in English. Obviously, writing English lyrics is one of the efforts to be honest. We’ve been working it out because we all agreed “English matches the best in our music concepts”. Since covid-19 crisis has settled down now, we are extremely eager to work with artists across the world to accelerate our musical activities overseas. For example, performing with such artists at festivals to expand our field of arts.

Our next album will have some more collaboration songs both with external and domestic musicians including “Fleeting Fantasy feat. Kiefer”. Each one of them is so powerful. Especially making “Snowy Road” with an Asian musician 9m88 is so meaningful to me. The song sounds like Christmas, but my father is a Japanese monk and Christmas isn’t rooted here in Asian regions. So, we intentionally avoided using the word Christmas in the lyrics. Such European concept songs are to show our respect to musicians we’ve got influenced by. But we never want to lose our own roots. I think this song perfectly blends such admire with 9m88’s Chinese lyrics. I believe that his song will be going to hook up attention from new listeners.

9m88:
I’ve studied Jazz in NY and got highly influenced by European and American music. Recently, the number of talented artists in Asia have been rising, so I am hoping that this song mixed with Chinese and Japanese will help more people to start getting interested in Asian culture.

Close relationship between fashion and music

―9m88, we heard that you also studied fashion in college. And so does WONK have its own apparel brand supervised. Today’s interview place “winestandTEO” in Kiyosumi Shirakawa, a natural wine stand, is under WONK’s supervision, too. Do you two sympathize with each other’s activities?

9m88:
I think fashion is one of the self-expressions. Stage costumes and costumes in MV highly reflect my style. For example, in a fashion show, we can hear background music to grasp the image of costumes and that makes us realize the close bond in between. I am not yet capable of activities other than music, but sooner or later, I would like to hold apparel events like WONK has done.

Nagatsuka:
I am sure our brand “EPISTROPH” keeps moving forward and getting to be capable of more new things than the past. It must be important to expand the project wider and continuously promote us more to the public. Each and every step should be carefully chosen. In near future, since each member can take initiatives on planning projects, I hope that we could launch our own studio by making use of the strength. We are inviting some new co-workers for the studio management.

Waiting for an opportunity to hold a gig together

―What would you do if you had another opportunity to work together?

Nagatsuka:
I would like to hold a gig together. Both featuring 9m88 on our stage and me introduced on her stage must be so great. Collaborations on TV shows and festivals sound awesome, too.

9m88:
I think so, too. With WONK members, it could only be extremely fun. I would love to shoot an MV together if possible.

WONK「Snowy Road feat.9m88」
WONK “Snowy Road”
Releasing on 2023/12/06
Access to the distribution platform from the link below:
virginmusic.lnk.to/SnowyRoad